Former Vitol Trader Pleads Guilty to Bribing PEMEX Officials in Contract Scheme

A former trader from the U.S. affiliate of energy giant Vitol, Javier Aguilar, has admitted to bribing officials at Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) in a bid to secure lucrative contracts. Aguilar's guilty plea is one of the outcomes of an extensive criminal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) into bribery-related corruption within Vitol, involving energy sales to Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico between 2017 and 2020, the agency announced in a press release on Thursday.

Vitol, recognized as the largest energy trading company globally, had already admitted in December 2020 that its employees were involved in bribing officials in Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico. As part of a deferred prosecution agreement, the company agreed to pay $135 million in penalties and implement a corporate compliance program to detect future criminal misconduct.

Aguilar, who was based in Vitol’s Houston office, was among at least seven employees who orchestrated a complex scheme involving shell companies, fake contracts and invoices, alias email accounts, and code words to disguise the bribes, according to the DOJ. Aguilar and his co-conspirators paid $600,000 to senior officials at Pemex Procurement International, which then secured contracts for Vitol to supply ethane to PEMEX, deals valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Aguilar pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Travel Act. Earlier in February, a Texas grand jury convicted him of conspiring to bribe Ecuadorian and Mexican officials, as well as conspiring to commit money laundering.

Seven of Aguilar’s associates involved in the criminal activities have also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. They have collectively agreed to forfeit more than $63 million in illicit gains.

“My office’s prosecutors—experts on the [FCPA]—will continue to bring to justice those who damage the integrity of Texas’s vital energy sector with illegal advantages fueled by greed. This guilty plea begins the process of repairing the damage caused by Aguilar as well as putting on notice those who might seek to emulate him and his cohorts,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani, in the Southern District of Texas, in the release.

Vitol has yet to respond to a request for comment.

By fLEXI tEAM